Hi locke,

Thanks for reading and replying. The thing about re-reading James’ whole article twice, is that (as I mentioned in my own article), the vast majority of the contents of his article are not only acceptable, but even important information to circulate. I was specifically upset about using a marginalized population in the title as clickbait to prove a point, and yes, also the tweet you alluded to as well.

Everything else in that article could have stood alone and held greater authority without having to “use” a marginalized group that is perceived by the author as having privilege (even just what was alleged to be the privilege of not being hated what YOU or James perceive to be “as much” or to be AS at risk as LGBTQ people – which fundamentally negates the existence of people who appear at the intersection of both of those identities, and perpetuates a very harmful sense that Jewish people inherently have some kind of privilege, and that they don’t deserve it, and by some connotations, that the tolerance for their existence shouldn’t be either as high as it is or at least not higher than it is for LGBTQ people).

The very phrase you use here, “Indeed, what it said to me is that the Florida legislature cares less about queer people than they do about Jewish people” is precisely the problem here. That, combined with when you said “I would like to think that most people in this country, in spite of pockets of severe antisemitism, do not view Jewish people in an unfavorable light and do support them. Most people are not bigots.” That is a huge, colossal problem.

To be blunt here, locke, it is foolish and cruel for you to think that your gut instincts about most people in this country and their perceptions about Jews are more credible than the lived experiences of Jews. Do you believe that most people are not bigots from the standpoint of most people not being transphobic? Probably not.

What you may not have thought enough about to connect with regards to intersectionality is that transphobia is absolutely intrinsic to white supremacy. White supremacy is intimately connected to Christianity, and both of those things (note the history of the KKK in America and of course Nazism in Europe and beyond) are diametrically opposed not just to any form of non-whiteness, but very specifically the non-whiteness espoused by Jewishness as well.

That is why a startling 65 million Americans alone (according to a 2021 PRRI QAnon Research Report) believe QAnon theories, many of which centrally consider Jewish people to be operating cabals and controlling society. A November ResumeBuilder.com survey showed 1 in 4 hiring managers and recruiters are less likely to move forward with Jewish applicants, driven mainly by the idea that “Jews have too much power and control” already. In Florida alone, there was a 40% jump in antisemitic incidents in 2020, followed by a 50% increase in 2021. Despite accounting for just over 2% of the United States population, Jews accounted for over 50% of all religion-based hate crimes in the US in 2021. A quarter of the respondents of the 2021 American Jewish Committee Survey reported being directly targeted by antisemitic expressions. Nearly four in ten changed their behavior to lower risks to their safety. Four in ten reported avoiding visible expressions of Jewishness in public, like wearing a kippah. I’m sad to report that I don’t wear any indications in public because I fear for my safety.

The fact that I need to spell out all of this for you in the hopes that you’ll believe me (and I honestly still don’t think you will), is frankly sad and disgusting to me. I intend to block further comments after responding to the few here because despite the fact that you are a trans person, you still couldn’t do enough of your own research about the state of antisemitism (or bother to just believe Jewish people) rather than trust your own hunch about the goodness of “most” people and their acceptance of Jews. I would never demand this kind of labor from a trans person to prove to me in any way that their experience is real; I’m hoping that you also wouldn’t disbelieve Black people, for example if they were talking about fear and oppression, but the reality is you might. Regardless, you should know better.

For the record, I don’t think you are a bad person, and I have no desire to attack you or make you feel any worse than any trans person feels at this horrific and shameful juncture in American history. I do have a heartfelt desire to help explain to you what you’re not seeing, and give you the benefit of the doubt because I earnestly think you just don’t know much about the experience of Jewish people, because we are only .2% of the global population and we generally exist in very small concentrated pockets, so there isn’t necessarily a reason that you would know a ton about the Jewish experience other than what you’ve been exposed to through specific pockets of media or any of the individual Jewish people you’ve known.

When you say that you find James to be a person of goodwill in your response to my piece and tell me that I’m “overreacting and accusing him of things unfairly,” aside from audaciously gaslighting me, I’m afraid that you are unwittingly falling into the same trap of white fragility yourself. When you conflate “badness” and total condemnation of one’s character with someone pointing out and attempting to call you in when you’ve made a mistake that came across as bigoted or hurtful, you are perpetuating the same kind of reactionary, reductive vacuum that undermines the possibility for understanding and dialogue as James did when he admitted to me outright that he didn’t even bother to read my response because he refused to accept the mere idea that he could have made a mistake to begin with. This is peak fragility, and cowardice.

I now think James is a piece of shit because he literally removed my comment and accused me of lying when I went to great lengths to spell out clearly and kindly to him why it was hurtful. I had every hope and belief that he would simply remove the superfluous part of his article that USED (or in other words, weaponized) Jewish people to prove a point, and instead he double-down, because he is a fragile piece of shit and he is not actually a person of goodwill.

I hope that you think twice about projecting your assumptions about the experiences of other groups onto them and demand labor from them when your feelings are hurt because someone you like was called out for making a mistake in the future. To err is human, but to shirk responsibility for your mistakes and blame other people for them when they happen is to be a genuinely useless piece of shit. Take care of yourself and stay safe.